Community Highlights: Meet RC Walker of La Storia Productions

Today we’d like to introduce you to RC Walker.

Hi RC, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in Aspen, Colorado. After graduating from CU Boulder with a degree in Finance (of all things), I decided to play “hookie” and spent a few years living in Hawaii before making my way to France. The place I was working at in the Alps had an old camcorder and my roommates and I started making short films. I had always been inspired by films but this moment of creativity behind the lens ignited a deep love of cinematography for me and changed the trajectory of my life.

I continued to pursue filmmaking and after nearly five years in France, decided it was time to take it seriously. My brother Geoff, also had a passion for films and so we decided to start a video production company together. We had no training, no experience, and no clients at the time. But my brother had been working in North Carolina for a non-profit, so he at least had a small network of connections. So in 2013, I moved to Charlotte and we officially launched La Storia Productions together out of our tiny apartment.

Thankfully, our love and passion for storytelling, along with lots of hard work, introduced us to some incredible people (who we still consider some of our closest friends) and they helped us tremendously. They connected us with the Charlotte creative community and helped us sync up with like-minded clients. But perhaps the best of these introductions during this time was that Geoff and I each met our wives on our own film sets (and still get to work alongside them today).

As the business grew, we found ourselves traveling all over the country for work and loving it. I am someone who is deeply inspired by the geography around me and I could feel something stirring inside me again. By 2016, the Colorado siren call was too hard for me to ignore, so we decided to expand and open a La Storia office in Boulder, CO to be closer to family and tap into the mid-west market. My brother, Geoff, stayed in Charlotte to oversee operations there and my wife, Molly (our Executive Producer at the time) and I ventured to Colorado to open our new location.

In 2021, after being in Boulder for a few years, a space became available and allowed us the opportunity to build out a production studio. Owning a studio had always been a dream of my wife’s, so in January of 2022 we completed the build out and opened LSP Studio. As a rental studio, it’s been awesome to see how other creatives in our community are using it for their projects and clients, but for the La Storia team the studio has created a fun space for us to experiment, try out new ideas, and offer more unique photo and video campaigns to our clients.

Looking back, I’m deeply grateful for the path this career choice has led me down. It’s enabled me to meet and work alongside my beautiful, incredible wife (who has tirelessly helped us build and grow La Storia over the years) and it’s brought some truly amazing people into my life that have become life-long friends.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
When we first launched our company, my brother and I had invested every penny we had into starting La Storia. We actually used to walk to a Staples near our apartment to literally buy a pack of staples, because it was the cheapest thing we could afford on our business debit card to avoid the monthly bank fees. At that time, we could only afford one bed between the two of us, so we would rotate monthly as to who got to sleep in the bed and who slept on the floor. Back then, we survived on a healthy diet of coffee and microwave burritos (though I have no complaints about that part)

Our first client was a cycling race that raised funding and awareness for cancer. I remember after we had finished filming the race, our client gave us a box of leftover Cliff Bars. That provided lunch for Geoff and I for many weeks.

Probably the hardest phase for me thus far (and many others in our industry and beyond) was trying to run a production company during COVID and endure the countless challenges that popped up daily. With a business platform primarily built on large groups assembling from around the world, traveling in and out, and working in close proximity together for days to months on end, we as an industry have had to do some major pivoting to re-think what production might look like in the future. It was actually my Grandmother who told me the best advice around that time. She said her dad used to always say in times of challenge to “begin by considering the resources you have available”. That statement helped me re-assess with our team and pivot into the areas we needed to, to stay competitive and offering support to our clients in the ways they really needed it at that time.

In this industry, when everything comes together on a particular project, it’s a feeling that is so gratifying it’s almost inexplicable. But with most creatives in this field, this kind of passion for the craft also comes a crippling degree of self-doubt and insecurity. It has taken me a good ten years to look deeply inward and address the insecurities that come from putting your heart out there publicly and leaning into the creative process. And to learn how to separate what others think of my work, from how I value myself. I love what I do and I’m grateful for it, but I’m finally at peace with the fact that my work can’t be all that I am.

Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
La Storia Productions is an award-winning, commercial Production Company and Content Creation Studio based in Boulder CO, serving brands and agencies worldwide.

We create top shelf marketing solutions for clients looking for fresh ideas, impactful outcomes, and a trusted creative partner. Our wide range of services help brands and agencies create the custom content they need, without any of the fluff.

We specialize in Video and Photography campaigns for inspiring, established, and emerging companies, primarily in the Technology, Outdoor, and Food & Beverage industries.

Together, our production team has 35+ years in the industry, successfully completing projects of all shapes and sizes, for clients including Moen, Boar’s Head Brand, Lamborghini, Canon, Seagate, and most recently, Disney.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lastoriaproductions.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lastoriaproductions/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaStoriaProductions/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lstoria
• Youtube: https://vimeo.com/lastoriaproductions

Image Credits
La Storia Productions